03 March 2015

My friend and I were just planning a little walk to while away the time when our kids were at the scouts meeting. I’d never walked that trail before and was keen to check it out. It was a pleasant-enough trail. The weather was just right. I could see different trails branching out from ours that we could further explore next time.

We started the hike at around 6pm. It was still light out. But shortly in, I had to take out the flashlight. We saw frogs along the path when there was still light. Neither one of us was skittish about them. But on our way back, I saw something move across my path and my friend said, “Watch out!” Because I couldn’t see well, I had imagined a snake slithering across and I hopped, skipped, and danced a jig for several beats before settling down. We both then realized that it was just another frog. I had heard from other hikers that they’ve come across snakes during their hikes and that’s an experience I could definitely live without, thankyouverymuch!

27 February 2015

It’s this time of the year, around Chinese New Year, that we see a lot of these flowers in these colors. Not sure if these colors are natural. Regardless, I think the combination of this shade of red and yellow is so pretty!

20 February 2015

We decided to have a hotpot dinner on the eve of Chinese New Year. What hotpot dinner is ever complete without dumplings? We started preparing the dumplings early afternoon (recipe here). We used store-bought wrappers, but the we made the fillings ourselves. Zoë loves helping out. She’s gotten pretty good at wrapping the dumplings and planted herself in the kitchen insisting on helping with everything. Here’s one of her ‘creations.’

18 February 2015

There is this stretch of road in North Point called Marble Road. On any given day, I love walking along this road. There is so much character, so much to absorb. A great place for people-watching. You get your fill of elderly people walking with their grandchildren as they go about doing their daily marketing. You get to observe shop vendors hawking their goods. You see the delivery people carting crates and cartons of goods and you also see the little old ladies collecting the carton boxes and flattening them to sell to recycling facilities.

Marble Road is always bustling with activity, mainly because of the market (wet and dry goods). The trams come through here en route to the terminus, as do cars and trucks. Pedestrians walk in the middle of the street and just move to the side whenever they hear the ding-ding of the tram whistle. Cars and trucks crawl through here very carefully. The street is lined with little set-up shops on both sides, selling everything from socks, clothing, hair accessories, shoes to fresh vegetables and fish. Looking up, you can see these old flats with their random window air-conditioning units and (sometimes) laundry hanging out. Very reminiscent of old Hong Kong on the postcards, before all the modern, swanky high-rises and skyscrapers took over the cityscape.